The adventures of a zany mom

It takes seven (7) things to go wrong for a human-related disaster to occur. These human errors (which could be mitigated if caught), then result in a "human-related disaster". Quoting from Malcolm Gladwell’s Outliers, “The typical accident involves seven consecutive human errors. One of the pilots does something wrong that by itself is not a problem. Then one of them makes another error on top of that, which combined with the first error still does not amount to catastrophe. But then they make a third error on top of that, and then another and another and another and another, and it is the combination of all those errors that leads to disaster.”  Hence the term. I've read through several articles recently and been cautioned about dwelling on 2016 to make a comparison to 2024.  However, that is the most recent election that turned our world upside down.  The similarities between 2016 and 2024 exist and, I feel, that thread has to be followed.   The 2016 election...

America, we have a cancer.  We had an abnormal person that invaded democracy, and attacked our democratic norms from within.  This person was allowed the highest and most powerful office in the land. An office that could have been used to better peoples lives.  An office that could be used to promote American values abroad.  Instead, we saw this cancer metastasize into all branches of the government. The only treatment for this cancer was oncological surgery by voters, while the patient was ravaged with a pandemic. The good news is that the voters took a big chuck of the tumor out on November, 3rd, 2020.  The voters came out in record numbers and chose to remove the tumor. Yet, with all this, the tumor manages to live.  The tumor lives in the guise of GOP congressmen and senators who won’t stand up to the tumor.  The tumor seems to spread in the guise of white supremacists who don't accept American values.  So, other types of cancer treatment are ...

Immigration to North America began with Spanish settlers in the sixteenth century, and French and English settlers in the seventeenth century. For a century before the American Revolution, there was a major wave of free and indentured labor from England and other parts of Europe as well as large-scale importation of slaves from Africa and the Caribbean. Today, one fifth of the country (almost 60 million)  are immigrants or first generation Americans. We, therefore, are a nation made up due to migration. What makes America unique as compared to other countries is that the founding fathers expected that as people migrated into the country, they would add to the moral and economic capital of the growing country. A substantial portion of the Americans are opposed to the continuation of large scale immigration, and want to stop this influx of migrants.  Many of these are old-stock Americans who have all but forgotten their own immigrant ancestors.  Some, distastefully, are rec...

There is a lot on my mind lately. I have veered from abject despair to a painful yearning hope all within the space of a few minutes. This is not a recent occurrence but perhaps has been ongoing for the past 5 years but this phenomenon has been more pronounced over these past 6 months.   This is because all of us are being abused. We are being mentally abused by a person who didn’t qualify to sit in the highest office of the United States. Yet he rules (not leads) in his classic authoritarian manner with no regard for human life. Here are classic signs of an abuser. - Extreme jealousy.  You think he is not jealous of the achievements of President  Obama ? - Possessiveness which leads to adverse control - Unpredictability which confuses the  abused - A bad temper with verbal abuse . We all know what happens to the few members of the GOP that dare raise their concerns about him.  They suffer his abuse.  This is what happened to Flake  and Sanford...